Superman Quits The Daily Planet To Start The Next Huffington Post

Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, is quitting his longtime position at The Daily Planet in order to start a news blog dedicated to truth, justice, and the American way.

Writer Scott Lobdell started his run on the DC Comics book last month and has announced that he plans to shake up the character’s already-shaken status quo, reports USA Today. The first step in that process? Putting Superman’s Clark Kent through a Jerry Maguire moment and having him quit the paper that has employed him since his early appearances in 1940.

“This is really what happens when a 27-year-old guy is behind a desk and he has to take instruction from a larger conglomerate with concerns that aren’t really his own,” Lobdell explains. “Superman is arguably the most powerful person on the planet, but how long can he sit at his desk with someone breathing down his neck and treating him like the least important person in the world?”

And you guessed it: Superman’s epic walkout will include a call to his journalistic peers to stand up for “truth, justice, and the American way.”

“While it has its problems, there are a lot of good things to say about America and the American way, and I’m glad Clark is standing up for her,” says Lobdell, who also writes Superboy and Teen Titans for DC. “I’m happy to be involved in that and his declarations.”

So what’s next for Clark Kent? Hint: Jerry Maguire.

“Rather than Clark be this clownish suit that Superman puts on, we’re going to really see Clark come into his own in the next few years as far as being a guy who takes to the Internet and to the airwaves and starts speaking an unvarnished truth,” Lobdell explains. “He is more likely to start the next Huffington Post or the next Drudge Report than he is to go find someone else to get assignments or draw a paycheck from.”

Why the sudden and dramatic change with 70-years of comic book history? It’s all part of DC’s “soft-reboot” launch of their continuity, titled “The New 52,” in which the entire fictional universe hit the reset button (except for Batman, because you don’t fix what ain’t broke) including putting most superheroes at the beginning of their careers again. Superman, for instance, is barely known to the people of Metropolis, let alone the world, just yet. His marriage to Lois Lane was also magic-markered out in favor of a dalliance with Wonder Woman.

Do you read comic books? What do you think of the Superman relaunch? Do the new changes make the character more relevant?